Polestar eliminates the rear window in latest electric car
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I wonder if there’s NHTSA data on this specifically for passenger cars? Maybe incidents caused by blocking the driver’s rear view (with furniture or people or whatever) versus fumbling around with a touchscreen or a joystick?
Yeah, it's totally fine, as long as you have both side mirrors. It'd be nice if they put bigger mirrors on the side if they're killing the rear window though. Although they're pushing a screen to replace the mirror, I guess.
I haven't used one of those in a while, but I did have a rental with a screen / mirror and found it really strained my eyes to change from far focus on driving to near focus on the screen... Might be better when the screen is not also a mirror, I could kind of see the mirrored image if I was far focused even if the screen was on... it was pretty distracting until I figured out how to turn off the screen part.
What I'd really like to see is less software in an EV, complete isolation between higher and lower functions, normal physical controls and an ability to run the thing entirely disconnected from the manufacturer's dragnet. It should be able to charge and be driven with all critical instruments working fully disconnected from anything and without software updates.
My colleagues who drive EVs regularly are always having a panic about software updates which break things.
I currently don't own a car as I live in a big city but I do rent one occasionally and did own a Model S for a very short time. If I was to buy a car I'd like an EV next time, but not in the current state of things.
You're not wrong about London (I never owned a car when I lived there and that was a decade before Uber) but your worldview is skewed. If you look at American history from the last century, in cities like Los Angeles the car companies actually bought public transport railways and dismantled them in order to promote a car culture. And this is what we have.
Whose worldview is skewed then exactly?
Everyone can live their life in the way of their own choosing, I don’t begrudge anyone who owns a car or anything like that. But I assure you it’s very, very possible to be free without owning a car.
Even here in San Francisco you need a car to get around efficiently (or use Uber which comes to a point where you might as well pay for a car), plus it's impossible to fully enjoy the natural beauty further afield without a car.
Everyone can live their life in the way of their own choosing,
cool, thanks
it’s very, very possible to be free without owning a car.
If you live in one specific place and stay there.
My point is that freedom can come in different forms. A car is one route to one form of freedom but counter to the OPs assertion I’m absolutely not missing out not owning a car. I’ve just taken a different path, one that’s available to others too.
Congratulations, but this doesn't have anything to do with what they said.
My point is that freedom can come in different forms.
No one said anything about this.
They just said cars give people freedom of movement which is true. You're anecdotes about riding the subway doesn't impact this in one way or the other. I think you're making the common blunder of someone pointing out an effect and then misunderstanding that to mean only that thing has that effect.
I'm not saying you'll save money by owning a car here, that's definitely not true. It's a luxury item in this city. But it is very nice to have one at your disposal.
The rear view mirror is absolute advantage. It’s the only way to know wtf is going on right behind you.
I actually don’t use the rear view most days when driving. I’m planning to put a camper on my truck that would block the rear windows. Been giving it a test to make sure I’m okay without the read.
For the most part, I don’t really miss it. I have found that some small cars that ride my bumper tend to disappear - or at least require more visual searching.
The situation that I miss it the most is when I’m stopped at a light and visually checking that a car behind me isn’t going to come barreling into me.
Glancing , peripheral , situational awareness is important to avoid accidents. The once a couple of years situation
I hate it, though, because it forces your eyes to quickly and repeatedly adapt to short vision (the image is close to you), then again on the road etc.
There is no such a problem with the normal mirror which shows objects far away so you you don't need to adapt when switching between forward and back view
And of course, getting rid of the front window, too, would get rid of the accommodation issue, but I do not see that being accepted by car drivers soon.
We are I guess 30 years short of such features so that driving with such a cockpit is safer and more efficient
Sounds like a big nono for "older" people. I'm having difficulty focusing on the dashboard nowadays. Progressive glasses could fix it, but the short distance area is at the bottom, so you would have to tilt your head alot to see the mirror.
When backing up out of a parking space I much prefer the turnaround method since I lose all my periphery vision that keeps from backing up into the path of other vehicles or people, etc. My back up camera even has a warning for that basically saying "be aware of your surroundings while backing up, because this tiny cone of vision on the screen definitely won't help you with that". Of course modern cars are so high up I can't see anything directly behind me without the camera.
That sounds awful.
(But then I always take the window seat in trains.)
I am familiar with this design, the passenger is cocooned by a ceiling height designed for a person less than 5'6 (because the car looks way cooler on the outside). If you are any taller you get the transformative experience of a ride in "landscape mode" with your head rotated 90 degrees.
1) Driver's rear view is solved by using a camera, but what about rear passengers. Rear window provides natural light to come in. It might get pretty dark inside without it.
2) How will it impact the DMV driving test? In a recent driving test for a kid, the instructor explicitly said that if the kid reversed by looking at the camera view in the screen, she will fail the kid. With this car, there is no rearview window, so reverse can only be done by looking at the camera view, there's no looking back while reversing.
That's interesting, my compact sedan doesn't have a camera, and you can still see something in the rear view mirror, so I feel perfectly comfortable reversing into tight spaces or over longer distances.
Sometimes I drive rentals (different Toyotas) that have cameras, and I vastly prefer the camera for reversing. When leaving a parking spot, you can immediately see the cars in the lane you're reversing into. You can see directly behind the rear bumper (kids, dogs, forgotten baggage). Running over someone's kid in a busy parking lot is something I'm really terrified of, and the camera eases my mind a lot.
Haven't seen a 20" rear view mirror yet.
Have you ever had to reverse around a corner, since you did the test?
I can't see shit out of the back window without some work on my part on many cold mornings (with electric defrost), but a tiny little camera-heater could be both fast and efficient (which is more important for EVs).
I can wipe a small camera lens off faster than I cash wash a uselessly-filthy back window enough that it is better than a streaky opaque mess, as I've had happen to the back window on fairly mundane (if long) road trips with regular road grime.
Fewer windows means a cooler interior when it has been baking in the sun
It's a lot harder to get distracted by light and glare from phone screens or whatever that back-seat people are using when there's no interior mirror pointed in that direction to begin with
It doesn't sound all bad. And since it's got rather good cameras, that sure does sound better than the vehicles I've spent time driving that had neither rear windows nor any cameras.
There will be cleaning and electronics problems but every technology comes with its own set of issues. The only thing I can think of is the general idea that low tech. often has less moving moving parts and is more resilient but I'm not sure that applies here.
I can see those negatives every time in rain, dirt, snow...
My car has both in a combined unit, flip down for regular mirror and up for camera. While I initially thought it would be a gimmick, it didn't take me long to realize I preferred the camera view.
That said I wouldn't want to have a car with camera only, I don't trust the electronics that much and a mirror works better in certain situations.
You don’t need to move yourself around since view is wide angle.
Same for the rear view screen/mirror assembly. The viewing angle at which it it's fine to watch in screen-mode is considerable. In mirror-mode it has to be very close to function as intended.
My SO is about a head shorter than me, and likes to sit in a quite different position. Yet for us the screen-mode works fine without adjustment. When using the mirror there's a significant adjustment needed. I guess for other couples it might need adjustment regardless, but I imagine for many it will be fine in screen-mode.
Though I have no idea how much it varies between cars though. Could be ours has a wider viewing angle than other cars.
The HUD is amazing. Interior screens are only great while not driving.
Most car reverse cameras for 360 degree cameras provide very good visibility outside of the rear of the car. I don't necessarily see the problem with having a rear windscreen, but that's up to the buyer
These are all entire industries that already power society-vital functions. Embrace it!
My point was just that the Luddite “computers are bad” argument is silly when all modern cars and planes and everything else is fly-by-wire. If computers fail, the world fails - good thing engineering isn’t just a faf and reliability engineering actually works!
Kids aren't always smart, observant and logical, pets - doubly so. And even the smartest (but very unlucky) adult can just stumble and land down right under your tires.
Quite improbable - for sure, but not exactly impossible.
A mirror allows you to quickly judge the velocity of the other vehicle so you can consider moving out of its way to avoid a collision. There’s too much lag and uncertainty with a rear-view camera.
In the Tesla When you indicate left or right, it brings up the side cameras on screen.
When reversing, the rear view camera is brought up on screen.
You can also hit the camera button when driving to bring up side and rear view cameras on screen at will.
At first I had a little bit of skepticism. I figured it would be useful when the back is full of cargo or whatever, but limited beyond that.
A year on and I scarcely use the "real" mirror. The image on the camera is brighter at night, has less obstruction of the cars pillars and such, and it's automatic gain control reduces the amount of blinding a big truck behind me can cause
The rear view cameras on cars I've driven are often useless even in parking scenarios because of that.
The standard is that head units have a composite video input that simply gets switched to whenever you put it into reverse, and any overlays are done in the head unit.
These are utterly standard parts, and the entire auto industry could die tomorrow and you would still have zero problem sourcing this part for decades to come.
It doesn't matter which make or model of car you have.
I often find that I forget to wipe the rear window because I have no trouble seeing with the camera.
However the wiper does go over the area covered by the camera, so with snow in particular the wiper works wonders.
When the backup camera isn't covered in grime it really helps with parking though.
Interestingly enough, the actual "backup camera" is mounted lower than the rear view camera, down by the license plate. When you run the rear sprayer, it actually squirts a bit of fluid over the lense of that camera too. Still not as good a solution as Mercedes, who just hides the camera behind a flap when it's not in use, but better than nothing
Nothing beats having a proper following distance for safety.
https://news.samsung.com/global/the-safety-truck-could-revol...
Global warming sucks, but I’ve become personally invested in doing my little part to fight it and to push for green alternatives in my town, among my friends and family, etc. I could choose to despair about how humans as a whole may never take enough action, or should’ve taken more action 40 years ago, but dooming doesn’t help anyone. Instead I’m excited about all of the new ideas, ingenuity and technology developed to fight global warming and climate change every day.
War has always been a constant throughout human history, today is no different. I don’t think it’s very dystopian. I’m glad I’m on the side that stands for liberty and democracy, and I wish we could do more for Ukraine right now. That said, I rate the risk of WWIII pretty low, and the same for nuclear war — especially after Iran’s attack on Israel led to nothing.
I don’t have much to say about financial inequality, but unaffordable housing is probably the most dystopian thing you’ve listed. I’m from a small town where it isn’t too bad of a problem (houses are around 300k [1] for reference) so I don’t have much experience with this. I can see how this could make a lot of young people despair.
So all that to say: I’m not delusional — and I’d appreciate it if you don’t call me so. I’m aware of the problems that we all face, I just don’t think they’re so insurmountable as to say we’re living in a dystopia. I have a lot of hope for the human race.
[1] Around 300k usd for 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2k sq ft and 0.4 acres of property, after a quick search for a nice house on a realtor’s website here in town.
Tatra 87[1] would like a word. I'm sure there are more if you're versed in automotive history.
That’s good when you’re driving 80mph on the freeway, but way too big around town.
I’d like to see drivers in US cities have the option for something smaller, like Renault’s new Duo, the replacement for the Twizy:
https://insideevs.com/news/615402/renault-mobilize-duo-is-ne...
No thank you. Also, it’s ugly.
Lol finally! Auto industry catching up with the latest and greatest software trend!
Maybe every company should open an office in Sweden and call itself Swedish.